1. Field of the Invention
The present invention related to a method of freezing sea food or fishery products and more particularly to a method of freezing sea food products such a tuna, lobster, oysters, whale meat and the like by immersing them in brine.
2. Prior Art
Conventional freezing methods for freezing fishery products include air or brine (antifreeze solution) cooled by a cooling medium, and freezing by immersing fishery products in liquid nitrogen or liquid carbon dioxide.
Since the foregoing methods create more or less a great amount of drip after thawing, however, weight loss or deterioration of the taste and quality of the fishery product occurs.
The cause for drip is likely due to breakdown of the muscular tissue of the meat of sea food by ice crystals which occur during the freezing process, which results in an increase of salt concentration in the tissue which has a relationship to the freezing rate.
This causes a drawback in that production costs are increased since the liquid nitrogen is expensive.
On the other hand, brine includes inorganic brine such as calcium chloride and organic brine such as ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, etc. Furthermore, the solution prepared by mixing the above ingredients is advantageous in that greater cooling is achieved at a comparatively lower price.